I found my first Nancy Kress novel while roaming through the stacks of my college library. It was one of the beggars series. I recall that I read them out of order, but I absolutely loved the super smart kids. One of the things that drew me to Escape Pod was reading through its list of stories and finding many by Nancy Kress. Since the beggars series, I'd mostly read her short fiction, and I always love the mixture of hard science (often biology and genetics, stuff that is NOT at the top of my usual list of interesting scientific topics) and strong, unique characters.

I listened to 2 of her stories on the drive to work this morning. Ej-Es and End Game. Ej-Es, I'd started listening to on the drive home last night, and I was eager to encounter the resolution. The story was in many ways a revisiting of the good ole "prime directive" from Star Trek, even though I found myself thinking more about the debate over cochlear implants and deaf culture. It's kinda neat that the story was written for a collection of stories based on Janice Ian songs, particularly since it allowed for a clever literary bracketing of the story.

End Game focused (heh) on one of the many bits of static that have been bouncing around in MY skull. I find it hard sometimes to find the balance between multi-tasking and tunnel vision that produces the best work from me. I read best when I'm focusing on nothing else. I code best to constantly changing music. I'm always thinking about WAY more than I feel I should, even if it's BASICALLY on topic. I absolutely LOVE this story. It points at something many people aspire to (perfect concentration) and says "be careful, you want to be able to turn it off." As always, Kress takes a really neat idea and executes it beautifully. She reminds me in many ways of Asimov's early robot stories, except with much more personality.